And After
by luvsanime02
Summary: Clint's having a bit of a costume mishap. Luckily, his boyfriend's around to help him out.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Marvel comics or characters or movies, and am making no money off of this fic.

**AN: **For ClaraxBarton! For the October 4th Spooktober prompt: costume malfunction.

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**And After** by luvsanime02

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Clint had assumed that this costume would be easy to wear. How can someone go wrong with a tunic and tights? Apparently, this sort of fabric can get very tricky when you buy one that's a size too large. Fabric is hanging loose on Clint in several different places, and it's very distracting.

Even more distracting is when Clint walks past a Halloween decoration - some kind of hanging spider that looks really great when you see it in the store, but which in reality everyone has bumped into at least once during the party, and the poor thing is liable to be burned at some point in the not-so-distant future - and his tunic snags on one of the surprisingly prickly legs.

No big deal, he thinks, and gives a tug on his torso, assuming that the spider will let go of the fabric. Instead, Clint is left with a large rip across the front of his costume and a spider leg dangling from his chest. Because of course.

At this point, Clint's not even annoyed anymore when things like this happen to him. Or surprised. He simply reaches down and tries to peel off the spider leg, somehow manages to scratch both his hand and his chest with the thing, and when Clint does eventually get the leg free, a large portion of his chest is now exposed to the open air.

Whatever. So Clint's now a Robin Hood who was just recently in a fight and hasn't had the time or money to repair his tunic. Fine. He can go with that. It adds character to his - well, character - even. Realism. This totally works.

"I can't leave you alone for five minutes," Bucky announces, appearing out of the throng of people with two beers, and with his own Rambo costume not sagging or ripped anywhere. Actually, that's kind of a shame, because Clint wouldn't say no to seeing more of Bucky's skin.

"Help me get this leg back on the spider before Natasha sees what I did to her decoration," Clint replies, ignoring Bucky's comment because yes, Clint's a disaster who shouldn't be left on his own for any length of time.

Bucky passes him a beer, and Clint passes over the spider leg in return. Somehow, in some magical way that Clint can't follow even though he's watching, Bucky manages to reconnect the spider's leg. It doesn't even look noticeably bent or anything. Awesome.

When his attention turns back to Clint, though, Bucky frowns. "Are you bleeding?" he asks.

Clint doesn't know why he's phrased that as a question when it's obvious that the answer is yes, but he nods anyway. "It's fine," he assures. "Adds character."

Bucky gives Clint an admonishing look, and gently grabs hold of his wrist before tugging him along the hallway and towards the bathroom. Clint goes quietly enough, knowing by now that there's no way Bucky's going to believe him if Clint says that he's fine again.

So maybe the cuts sting a little. It's still fine. Although, when Clint looks down again, he can see that some blood is slowly dripping down his chest now, and okay, he doesn't need a drying blood stain on his ruined tunic to top this night off.

"I told you that you should have just picked something else when they didn't have your size," Bucky says. He lets go of Clint's hand to open the cabinet under the sink and get out Natasha's well-stocked first aid kit, and then grabs his wrist again and tugs Clint a little bit closer.

"Yeah," Clint admits, "you were right." Bucky's usually the sensible one. Well, no, he's just as much of a disaster as Clint, but he's more sensible when it comes to Clint's health. The really sensible ones in their circle of friends are Natasha and Bruce. Sam pretends to be sensible, but he and Steve are twice the amount of disaster together that Clint and Bucky are, which is pretty damn impressive, all things considered.

Bucky wipes the cuts clean and then puts some gauze over them, and if Clint has to be a disaster, then at least he has the best boyfriend ever to help patch him up afterwards. Bucky is always there for Clint, unfortunate costume malfunctions and all.


End file.
